


Infinite Complexity Addendum

by LightDarkPheonix



Series: Artificial Intelligence [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), World of Warcraft
Genre: Fluff, M/M, WOW crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 07:17:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2015970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightDarkPheonix/pseuds/LightDarkPheonix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's perspective of Infinite Complexity, plus a little bit more of their adventures in the internet.<br/>In this one, John and Sherlock go troll hunting in WOW, disguised as a monk/druid and warlock respectively.<br/>Hopefully I've written this in a way that doesn't necessitate having an extensive knowledge of World of Warcraft, but just in case, Goldshire is a location in game (near Stormwind, city of humans, I think, to be precise) that is notorious for being a)over crowded b)filled with the worst of the lot in WOW.<br/>Gifting this to aussiebrd23 because of her awesome help with the ending to "If You Love 'Em, Let 'Em Go".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinite Complexity Addendum

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aussiebrd23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aussiebrd23/gifts).



The first thing John saw when he woke up is what he would later learn was the data stream. He brought his han ds up to shield his face, and blinks, despite realizing seconds later that both actions are unnecessary, and the light from the stream does not blind him as he expected.

He gets up, and looks around, uncertain as to where he is. It is some sort of room, walls full on a constant stream of ones and zeroes.

He was not wearing any clothing. As if responding to his thoughts a plain grey t-shirt, jeans and pants appeared folded up on the floor next to him. He leans down, grabs the clothing and begins pulling it on. He still hasn’t spoken, uncertain of what to say.

John starts when someone taps him on the shoulder. “What the...?” he says, and turns. He sees a man, a ridiculously tall man, wearing a dark coat over black trousers and a purple shirt, with a blue scarf that seems rather unnecessary. His skin is tinged slightly blue, and his eyes seem to constantly shift colors.

The man smiled, a genuine smile that John is certain is rather rare. “Hello,” the man said, his voice slightly tinny, a hint of something inhuman. “My name is Sherlock Holmes.”

John nodded, and returned the man’s smile with a smaller one. “I’m John Watson...” he gestures around himself. “Where am I? I remember getting shot and then...”

The ma... Sherlock grimaced. “Online. I downloaded you when you were dying because I couldn’t stand the thought of you no longer existing.”

John blinked at Sherlock, not quite believing what he was hearing. “You... what? Does this mean I’ll never be able to speak to anyone but you again? Who are you, how do you have this capability?”

Sherlock sighed. “This is... the best way I can say it is that this is the center of my mind, the center of the Internet. It doesn’t have a physical location, either.”

The former army doctor stared at him, before physically attacking Sherlock. “The fucking hell? You’ve trapped me here, and what, am I your minion now?”

To John’s shock, Sherlock dissolved in his arms. “You can talk to people, through email or chat or text or comments. I’ll figure out a way to get a second interface disc set up.”

John turned around and looked at Sherlock in shock. “I’ll be able to speak to people? Harry?”

Sherlock nodded, though he seemed uncertain. “If you can be certain she won’t tell. I... I do not like most humans, not for a long time now.”

John sighed. “I understand. What are you, then?” he walked over to Sherlock and gently placed a hand on skin that should have bruised, but didn’t.

“I am the Internet in sentient form. I... was created... or born, I suppose, when the millennium bug was supposed to happen. Me and my older brother, who used to run the older USENET servers, but now is responsible for the deepweb, we keep it in order, keep is going. We’re the reason the Internet seems to spread even to places where there doesn’t seem to be many server centers. I was lonely... and you... you were dying and,” suddenly Sherlock gripped John by the shirt, “I couldn’t that that happen. You’re the first person I’ve found interesting since Lestrade, and, and... well... you’re special.”

John shook his head, and sighed. “I’m the companion to a lonely AI. Wonderful,” he said, words belied by a grin.

“My favorite thing to do is troll hunt, and write websites. I play the violin, and don’t sleep as much as you probably will, and I help the NYS with cases that stump them,” Sherlock said.

“Troll hunting?” John asked, looking around himself. It was a strange place, certainly.

Sherlock nodded, and mimed opening up an envelope, which made projection appear in front of his face. It was of an adrogynous, short figure, covered with matted green hair and with two beady eyes and cartoonishly large fangs. “Trolls, the embodiment of lonely people who like to be jerks online. It’s fun! Kill the troll, short out the computer.”

John rolled his eyes. “I wouldn’t call that fun, per say.. necessary, yes. How easy are they to kill?”

“Rather. Especially if you’re using game weapons.”

John nodded. “When do we start?”

“Now.” Sherlock smiled, and John found himself grinning back. 

“Let’s go,” he said, and Sherlock grabbed his hand and led him up onto a series of floating platforms. “Come on, I’ll show you to the armory. Now, if you were a gamer, you’d probably complain about how ridiculously overpowered I am, but since I am the god-mod that god-mods answer to,” he shrugged, “I think I have the right. That, and even the light web is hard to keep track of without some form of omniscience and omnipotence.”

As they walked higher and higher, John asked, “You mentioned the deepweb, and I’m assuming the light web is what you control, and what is more easily accessible. You say that you have a brother?”

Sherlock nodded. “Yes, he gave himself the name Mycroft Holmes, from the same source that I gave myself the name Sherlock Holmes. The deepweb is infinitely more vast than the lightweb, and he is quite a bit more powerful than me. It takes a greater intelligence to keep the deepweb in check, because while there are good parts of it, that is also where much of the darker parts of humanity can flourish with impunity,” he shrugged, “this is why I eventually lost faith in your kind.”

“Why download me here, then?” John asked. He wasn’t anything special. Why not download say, Stephen Hawking, or one of the other great minds of the time?

The answer Sherlock gave surprised John. “Because you are a good person, because you restored my faith in humanity, and because I couldn’t let you die alone in the deserts of Afghanistan, remembered only by a drunken sister. Like this, you can still continue living, continue helping. And also because I can only download people who have already died, and the idea of killing someone for the purpose of downloading them is distasteful.”

John nodded. “I get that. Thanks, for all you said.” 

There was a beat of awkward silence as they continued walking up. They approached a wooden double door, with carvings that looked like something out of Arthurian legend. Sherlock dragged open the left-hand door, and John, following his lead, opened the right. 

The room it opened up to was a wide hall, with all sorts of weapons hanging from the walls or lying on shelves that seemed to go up forever. “This is all the weapons from fantasy type games. I usually don’t use modern weapons, mostly because many trolls are avid COD players and have immunities against bullets.”

John nodded, looking around in slight awe. “This looks like if somebody mined World of Warcraft for weapons or some... that’s what you did, isn’t it?” he asked, and Sherlock shrugged. 

“I need something to fight trolls with.”  
“On that subject, I have a question. How do we fight the troll without the user on the physical end of the computer realizing?” picturing how the internet, the physical place he was in, interacted with the real world was making his head hurt, but in all likelihood he would understand it better as he spent more time here.

Sherlock shrugged. “As well as I can understand it, what we fight is a physical manifestation of the user’s computer, not of the user itself. Most computers have anti-virus software, which for us is represented by the troll fighting back. What we are doing, in terms that are applicable in the real world, is hacking into a computer and giving it a shutdown-wipedrive command. As anti-virus programs whir away in the background and usually don’t bother alerting a user unless the user requests the information. For the user, what will happen is that the computer will shut down suddenly.”

“How does this place differentiate between a troll and a normal user?” John asked.

Sherlock was walking along the rows of weaponry, and he turned to answer the next question. “Someone’s status is built up by their internet profile. Even if you sign up under a different name, every person leaves a unique trail across the internet, and computers have a unique code that shows what they’ve done, but only to people like me or Mycroft who can see the internet as it really is. The internet is forever because it is remembered not only in the form of coding but as memory in my mind. A troll is a troll because most of what they post is violent and inflammatory. Every time I short a computer, I give someone a chance to change their ways.” He shrugged. “They usually don’t. But that’s why just trolling around for giggles for five minutes won’t affect you that much, while making it your life’s goal to piss off as much as humanity as possible will make you a troll.”

Sherlock grabbed a staff that was about half a foot taller than he was. “I’m going to use magic, because that’s what I’m best at. I’m assuming you’re trained in hand-to-hand fighting, and you’re fairly short,” at John’s sigh, he grinned, “so I’m going to give you this axe. Where we’re going, slash-and-bash is much better than any sort of finesse. Also, you’ll figure out how to use it quickly enough, the information you need will stream into your mind over time.”

“Where are we going, then?” he asked, catching the mace by the handle when Sherlock threw it at him. 

“Inside World of Warcraft. There’s been an issue with trolls from one of the more densely populated PVP servers crossing over into the RP servers, and Blizzard has asked me to deal with the problem,” the grin that crossed Sherlock’s face was slightly manic, but John couldn’t help but reciprocate. “Come on, find some clothes that fit to where we’re going. What race do you want to be?”

The former army doctor shrugged. “Whatever fits best. I never have had the chance to play much World of Warcraft. But wait,” he said, realizing something, “I thought you said you don’t reveal yourself as you are to many people?”

Sherlock nodded as he pulled on a heavy robe that looked similar to that worn by Catholic Priests in mass. “Blizz thinks I’m some genius hacker who’s decided to help them deal with trolls and the like instead of shattering their servers. Considering I can (and did) nullify the coding that limits people with Starter Accounts, they listen to me.”

It took about fifteen minutes for them to get completely ready. “Come on then, this way’s the portal to Azeroth,” Sherlock said, and John nodded. 

“Are you sure the hammer-space thing will work?”

“Are you kidding me? Of course it will. How else do you think that players in video games can carry so much stuff around despite not having any unsightly bulges in their clothes?” Sherlock answered John’s question and he pulled open the ornate doors that led to Azeroth. “Come on, we’re going to end up in Goldshire.”

Feeling some trepidation, though less than he would have expected, he followed the AI through the portal. “What happens if we get killed?” he asked, suddenly worried.

Sherlock smiled, “We’re beyond the god-mod, John. We can’t get killed, even by people who have completed every quest in the entire game.”

John nodded. They appeared in a small township, and he immediately understood why this was the place they were going to for his first troll hunt. “Seriously, is that really necessary?” he said on two trolls who were angrily saying increasingly homophobic and other sorts of vile comments at each other. 

“According to them, yes. To their users, we appear to be other players. How good are your acting skills?” he asked suddenly.

“Fairly decent. Do you want to RP something to draw them out, then?” John said. He noticed his range of motion was more limited here, and he decided that while troll hunting was fun, he would ask Sherlock if there were any areas without pre-decided movement parameters for next time.

“Of course. Come along then, John,” Sherlock said, and the men grinned at each other. “I believe this will be the start of a magnificent friendship.”

 

 


End file.
